Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012

OpenThreadGuy

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.

Still, if Hoover's policies weren't all that different from Roosevelt's, and most of Roosevelt's didn't make all that much difference, that's quite different from the usual account.

Also, is it true, as claimed in the article, that WW2 got the US out of the Great Depression? This has never seemed plausible to me (get richer by doing a huge amount of non-productive work?), and wars don't usually seem to be great for the economy.

The article is overstating the similarities between Roosevelt's policies and Hoover's. The Wikipedia article which I linked covers it pretty well. Some of the main components of Roosevelt's policies were:

Ending the gold standard
Regulating the banking/finance industry, including creating the FDIC (which put an end to bank runs) and the SEC
Creating a safety net (e.g., Social Security and the precursor to food stamps)
Expanding & creating more public works / job creation programs (Hoover had some, FDR employed as much as 7% of the workforce)

... (read more)

0tut14y

Would it make a difference if the effects of the war was described as decreasing real wages (by freezing nominal wages in big inflation) and killing a bunch of men?

0bogus14y

It's sort-of plausible, because the GD was due to a severe shortfall in overall nominal expenditure wrt. the prevailing level of prices and wages. The original cause of this shortfall was a series of mistakes in monetary policy; however, increased deficit spending in WW2 could have made up for it.

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Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012

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Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012

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